Network service providers generally desire the increased flexibility provided by usage based billing options. Generally, the ability to determine how much and how often particular clients use a shared network system or even specific network elements allows network service providers to increase customer savings by, for example, charging reduced usage rates during “off-peak” usage periods. Such incentives for off-peak usage tend then to normalize traffic patterns across peak and off-peak periods and thus optimize resource allocation.
However, since any two given networks are rarely alike, the development of a platform for enabling usage sensitive billing must be able to integrate various network elements that operate according to a variety of different protocols and utilize different input and output data formats. Furthermore, usage based billing is further additionally complicated by the fact that many next generation network service provider elements and devices today employ event-oriented data reporting mechanisms. Specifically, calls, online sessions, and network traffic routed through various networking equipment elements are typically comprised, as far as the network elements are concerned, of multiple separate events with each event being performed by different equipment and each piece of equipment then generating different types of vital information.
For example, a basic voice call may be broken into three different sequential events, namely a call initiation/setup event, a call continuation event (or alternatively several call continuation events), and a call termination event. In such a case, it may be that information detailing the calling and called party are detailed only in a call initiation/setup event data record, a continuation event data record solely contains information detailing the number of bytes of information transferred over a given time interval (i.e., degree of usage), and a termination event data record solely contains a needed call completion code (such as a unique ID). Assuming parts of all three types of information are needed to properly allocate expenses in a particular usage based billing scheme, then combining this separate information into a single call record (or “usage record”) would be necessary. As would be readily appreciated by one skilled in the art, combining information from data records for related events into a single call record is necessarily made more difficult when different network elements or systems (potentially operating according to different protocols and utilizing different data formats) are involved in the billable usage session. This problem, of course, becomes increasingly more predominant as the networks and usage based billing schemes become more complex.
Data network usage sessions also commonly are broken into multiple usage events similar in the manner as described with respect to voice networks above. Thus, a manner for combining event data records for the various usage events into a single usage detail record would be necessary for data network service providers as well.
Additionally, if the data in collected call or usage records must be combined with or in some way used in combination with one or more other collected call or usage records before a final detail record output suitable for use by an Operation Support System (“OSS”) or Business Support System (“BSS”) can be produced, then these data records must be aggregated. Contemporary platforms for enabling usage sensitive billing must take into account the fact that trends in next-generation networking equipment have moved the aggregation of such events into the responsibility of the OSS or BSS. However, OSS and BSS components, such as billing systems or decision support systems, are by their nature not readily adaptable to changes in the number and types of events that may comprise a single logical call or online session. As such, this approach has not produced robust yet flexible data collection platforms.
Therefore, a mediation solution is needed that provides a platform for easily collecting and aggregating processed information into a format acceptable for downstream applications and OSS/BSS components. This mediation solution must be able to collect relevant data from a wide variety of disparate networking equipment types, including Frame Relay, ATM, X.25, SIP and IP devices.
Thus, there remains a need in the art for improved systems and methods that can provide a flexible mediation solution for collecting and aggregating processed usage information and transforming that information into a format acceptable to for downstream applications such as a BSS or OSS.